A signature tune on the tube of one of the better known stress depressors in the land is an excitable ululation of “Wahala dey!”
To this particular comedian “wahala dey” is a far cry from the true character of “wahala” better known in Nigerian English as “big, big trouble.”
In this piece, as you will very soon find out when I say “Wahala dey” I mean exactly nothing less.
Some days ago, (Friday 15 October 2010) I was a guest at a dinner organized by a group of law undergraduates. It was a memorable day alright, but not for all the right reasons.
It was a big privilege, indeed honour to be put on the high table, where also sat one of those at whose feet twenty years ago, I was fed the milk of law as a fresher.
Also on the high table was a “worshipful majesty,” a great friend of the 1st Gecko who continues to tease me as a “small boy” even though discreet scientific investigation has shown that I landed on this terra firma before her.
Of course we the “older-generation" had issues to pick with the “generation of the day” our hosts. We disagreed with their dressing (disco party wears mostly), with their “lingo” (especially the penchant for introducing lawyers as “Barrister This and Barrister That" as well as their reference to themselves as “lawyers-in-equity."
From the lecturer in our midst, we heard depressing information about the state of university education in Nigerian. For example we learnt that class population of students can be as high as 450. Twenty years ago, we were only 46 in number in my set.
We also learnt that the command of the English language of the average law student is so poor it would be easier marking a law examination script written in pidgin Greek than wading through the scripts of the modern law undergraduates written in specially concocted English.
As if that was not enough, we learnt that it was a common thing for “stubborn” lecturers to be threatened to 'pass' even the most “yammy” of his class or face severe, nay, fatal sanctions.
The most chilling of the news from “my oga” was that due to the high rate of failure amongst students, 40% was no longer the pass mark, but 25%!
Even at that about 35% of these students still fail.
In effect what the universities are churning out these days are nothing but “certificated ignoramuses," be they labeled “engineers,” “doctors,” “accountants,” “lawyers” etc.
It has been said that half education is dangerous, so what do we say of quarter education: ‘dangerful?'
Listen to my lecturer:
"I was teaching on the topic of legal capacity and how it relates to infants. You know the stuff about how an infant can only have capacity to contract for necessaries. So I gave an example of infant entering a contract to buy a bicycle, only for one wonderful student to say such an infant is only putting himself in unnecessary danger: “what if the BRT buses should run him over?”
My people-Ah, wahala dey!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
'An African Tragedy' By Adesina Ogunlana
Omo ale
Lo n fi ow osi
Ju ‘we ile baba re” (Yoruba proverb)
(Only a bastard points out his father’s house with his left hand)
Sometimes last month, in the fore-teeth of September, I was on official duty as it were, one fine Sunday afternoon, to Ibadan.
The occasion was the thanksgiving service and reception of Mr. Erhabor 2nd Vice President NBA for his electoral success in the last Delegates election of the NBA in July 2010.
Expectedly O.J’s friends, relatives, admirers turned up at the event, likewise his political supporters and strategists. Success is never a lonely brand.
It was a rich quiet victory dance of a thanksgiving service. It was praises galore to God for the “wonderful victory” recorded by O.J at the polls. The man himself received a lot of commendations from all and sundry.
Yet the happy event was marred for me, incidentally from rather unlikely quarters; a royal father from Ilesa, Oyo State- O.J’s practice base.
The royal father, a high chief from Ilesa who was more or less the representative of the paramount ruler of Ijesa land prefaced his speech with these stunning remarks- “When I left home, today the Kabiyesi specifically instructed me that I should not speak the English language here, that I should deliver his message at this gathering in Yoruba language. But when I got here and saw the array of learned men all over here, I was perplexed. I thought within me how could I deliver Kabiyesi’s message in this August gathering in Yoruba. So as things stand, I will speak in English and when I get home, I will tell Kabiyesi that I just could not speak Yoruba in the place you sent me”
I was shocked and saddened at this declaration which was a desecration of culture, a perfect and tragic self abnegation and degradation of the entity called the Africa. The greater tragedy was that the foul talk was greeted with applause, smiles and wide grins. What a horror - like you must feel, seeing a mad man marching up and down a busy street in broad day light, in only his skin, arms akimbo and whistling merrily away! My sadness can only be imagined. By his declaration, the chief (is he really a chief?) thumped his race in the face. How can a true Africa high chief declare openly that he could not obey his monarch and did just that brazenly? What a sorry pass the African ‘monarchy’ (even if only decorative) has come to, that the instructions of a first class king like the Owa of Ilesa could be treated with levity by his own ambassador. The chief’s (is he really a chief?) position is quite clear - Yoruba is not a language fit for the society of civilized folks and enlightened souls, but fit I reasonably presume for the hills of Philistia and Isles of Barbary!
Oh, how are the mighty fallen! Oh what arrant nonsense! Yoruba the home of a thousand and one poetics, the flute of the dirge, the trumpet of the panegyrist, the drum of the Oshugbo, the voice of the Ifa the unerring deity of divination, the conductor of the potent invocation, the very tongue of Oduduwa, understood and respected in the heavenly ………. Now not good for use in the midst of mere mortals who happen to be lawyers?
Indeed, how very low are the mighty fallen! That Ilesa chief is typical of most Africans; deep, fervent and incorrigible believers in the inferiority of the African in the comity of the human race.
Oh, pity for a people who take pride in other people and pour scorn on themselves. Oh, pity for self made, self-defined slaves. Oh, pity for a race that calls others giants and themselves mites. Oh, pity for fools and ignoramuses. As for me I AM BLACK AND PROUD.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
'NBA ELECTIONS 2010: LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD' By Adesina Ogunlana
Immediately the 2010 general elections of the Nigerian Bar Association ended and the results announced, late in the evening of 29" July 2010 at the JOGOR CENTRE, Ibadan, Oyo state, the organizers and the winners of the election have not been silent in awarding high pass marks for the conduct of the elections which has been lavishly described as a huge success and prescribed a model for the larger Nigeria polity to copy.
Reading the many fulsome praises of the said elections, the ordinary man on the streets would be forgiven to think it a perfectly executed event devoid of any blemish or shenanigan whatsoever.
However any honest and informed participant or, and observer would admit that the claims of a perfect election are in reality, the inflation of the truth.
In the humble view of this columnist, the more correct assessment would be that the winners actually defeated their opponents at the polls; a more credible election could easily had been conducted.
A dispassionate view of the election would show that the Electoral Committee headed by Mr. Obi Okwusogu S.A.N erred in some vital areas.
Though accreditation of the compiled List of Voters, on delegates voters was smooth and displayed before the election, simple enough but it was observed showing the voting strength of during the accreditation exercise that there were pockets of complaints from individuals, branches and even some candidates over their registration to General Secretary Ibrahim Mark and Obi Okwusogu about the exclusion or inclusion of some names from the list of delegates.
The resolution of these complaints was fluid as a lot then depended on the personality of the complainant and the discretion of Ibrahim Mark and Obi Okwusogu SAN. For example three candidates from Ikeja branch in the elections Adekunnle Ajasa (financial secretary), Chinwe Nwadike (assistant financial secretary) and Dare Akande (2nd vice president) got accredited as voters only after the vigorous intervention of their branch secretary hours after Ajasa had tried and failed.
On the day of the election itself, it is a fact there was no list of Accredited Delegate voters, before, during or after the elections. In the event, nobody knew how many delegates voted until after the votes were cast when voter stubs were counted numbering 1,204, excluding uncounted rejects. Interestingly the total approved votes cast in the presidential election amounted to 1,205 with 718 going to J.B Dauda and 487 for J.K Gadzama. Clearly the proper procedure ought to be existence of a compiled List of Voters, on Display before the election, showing the voting strength of each of the 88 branches as well as the identities and numbers of automatic voters like Senior Advocacies of Nigeria, Benchers, past National Presidents and General Secretaries, accredited for the election.
In consequence, under the arrangement, the best data that could be had was the number of voters, correlating to the number of votes cast but it could not and did not show or prove the lawful eligibility of the voters. So if the voters included mercenaries and other otherwise unqualified entities, there was no way knowing.
During the voting, this reporter noticed that among delegate voters purportedly from Ibadan branch, at least two, wore double tags on their necks, bearing “observer”, and “delegate.” You wondered whether a person could both be observer and delegate at the same time!
Another low point of the elections that was papered over is the fact that the chairman of the Electoral Committee, Obi Okwusogu SAN perpetrated what could be described as “agent harassment and intimidation.” In the short pre-voting meeting of the Electoral Committee with the agents of the various candidates, Obi Okwusogu S.A.N., the chairman of the E.C throughout maintained the perfervid temperament of a beleaguered porcupine! He was to say the least oppressive in his manners, yelling, hectoring and rudely hushing up any agent who dared express any opinion or ask any question. The charged up silk repeatedly tossed the threat of "under the constitution I have the power to conduct this election and I will order any one out who does not comply with our regulations."
Certainly this bullying by an electoral chief, should not be commended to the Nigerian polity by any right thinking adviser! Why Okwusogu SAN normally a calm, amiable and easy going gentleman became so needlessly irascible and even power-drunk was simply bewildering but the conduct put up by him was construed in certain quarters as nothing more than a ploy to cow the agents of the candidates from opposing any untoward actions of the Electoral Committee.
The participation of Mrs. Fatima Kwaku in the Electoral Committee and conduct of the elections was another low point in the elections. It would be recalled that Kwaku had been deeply involved in the bitter and uproarious dispute that arose over the failed attempt by the falsely monolithic Northern Lawyers Forum a.k.a Arewa to present J. B. Daudu S.A.N as the single presidential candidate in the election and keep J. K. Gadzama out of the race. Up to the very day of the election Kwaku was a well known J. B. Daudu supporter, yet she and other so called learned elders and sages saw no sense in the decency that dictated her self-retirement from the electoral
committee!
In the course of the election proper maybe about three hours after the commencement of voting, the pair of Funmi Roberts and Chief Niyi Akintola rushed in one after the other, may be in the interval of thirty minutes to plead with the agents to agree to the opening of the voting hall to the huge crowd of voters outside.
According to the two lawyers, incidentally both who were co-chairmen of the Local Organising Committee of the Ibadan Delegates conference, the gates to the voting
hall should be opened since the "crowd outside were setting uncontrollable and wild and would soon force their way any how."
Chief Niyi Akintola SAN, a loud and virulent Dauduist was especially earnest in this claim. But when pointedly reminded by this reporter that he lacked the locus to press for such a thing, as to regulating access of voters, he not being part of the Electoral
Committee, his response to the QUO VADIS was a lame "we are only trying to find a solution and some people are just shouting."
All this while, the Electoral Committee maintained a sedate, "all-is-well-in-Zion posture" and did nothing!
The pertinent questions begging for answers were and still are:
1. Is throwing the gates open to a frenzied crowd, on an election ground, a reasonable
option?
2. Who was responsible for lack of crowd control?
3. Why was there such a massive crowd build-up considering the fact that NBA elections normally take 10-15 hours to conclude, and there had been no precedent of
crowd disturbance or unruliness since 1998, after the rebirth of the NBA?
In the light of all the above issues and points, I submit that any well meaning Nigerian patriot will find it hard to recommend the just concluded elections and the
accompanying shenanigans to this lamentable country.
An election where tribalism was a major factor, where key conductors were partisan, where there was no (display of) voters register, where crowd-control was poor, where voters accreditation was not transparent and where election conductors threatened,
terrorised and intimidated agents from asking relevant questions.
I close with this observation. In the Ibadan Delegate Conference election only about 1,204 voters voted in one voting centre. Imagine if it was an election of 30 million voters in 500,000 centres. Just imagine.
Reading the many fulsome praises of the said elections, the ordinary man on the streets would be forgiven to think it a perfectly executed event devoid of any blemish or shenanigan whatsoever.
However any honest and informed participant or, and observer would admit that the claims of a perfect election are in reality, the inflation of the truth.
In the humble view of this columnist, the more correct assessment would be that the winners actually defeated their opponents at the polls; a more credible election could easily had been conducted.
A dispassionate view of the election would show that the Electoral Committee headed by Mr. Obi Okwusogu S.A.N erred in some vital areas.
Though accreditation of the compiled List of Voters, on delegates voters was smooth and displayed before the election, simple enough but it was observed showing the voting strength of during the accreditation exercise that there were pockets of complaints from individuals, branches and even some candidates over their registration to General Secretary Ibrahim Mark and Obi Okwusogu about the exclusion or inclusion of some names from the list of delegates.
The resolution of these complaints was fluid as a lot then depended on the personality of the complainant and the discretion of Ibrahim Mark and Obi Okwusogu SAN. For example three candidates from Ikeja branch in the elections Adekunnle Ajasa (financial secretary), Chinwe Nwadike (assistant financial secretary) and Dare Akande (2nd vice president) got accredited as voters only after the vigorous intervention of their branch secretary hours after Ajasa had tried and failed.
On the day of the election itself, it is a fact there was no list of Accredited Delegate voters, before, during or after the elections. In the event, nobody knew how many delegates voted until after the votes were cast when voter stubs were counted numbering 1,204, excluding uncounted rejects. Interestingly the total approved votes cast in the presidential election amounted to 1,205 with 718 going to J.B Dauda and 487 for J.K Gadzama. Clearly the proper procedure ought to be existence of a compiled List of Voters, on Display before the election, showing the voting strength of each of the 88 branches as well as the identities and numbers of automatic voters like Senior Advocacies of Nigeria, Benchers, past National Presidents and General Secretaries, accredited for the election.
In consequence, under the arrangement, the best data that could be had was the number of voters, correlating to the number of votes cast but it could not and did not show or prove the lawful eligibility of the voters. So if the voters included mercenaries and other otherwise unqualified entities, there was no way knowing.
During the voting, this reporter noticed that among delegate voters purportedly from Ibadan branch, at least two, wore double tags on their necks, bearing “observer”, and “delegate.” You wondered whether a person could both be observer and delegate at the same time!
Another low point of the elections that was papered over is the fact that the chairman of the Electoral Committee, Obi Okwusogu SAN perpetrated what could be described as “agent harassment and intimidation.” In the short pre-voting meeting of the Electoral Committee with the agents of the various candidates, Obi Okwusogu S.A.N., the chairman of the E.C throughout maintained the perfervid temperament of a beleaguered porcupine! He was to say the least oppressive in his manners, yelling, hectoring and rudely hushing up any agent who dared express any opinion or ask any question. The charged up silk repeatedly tossed the threat of "under the constitution I have the power to conduct this election and I will order any one out who does not comply with our regulations."
Certainly this bullying by an electoral chief, should not be commended to the Nigerian polity by any right thinking adviser! Why Okwusogu SAN normally a calm, amiable and easy going gentleman became so needlessly irascible and even power-drunk was simply bewildering but the conduct put up by him was construed in certain quarters as nothing more than a ploy to cow the agents of the candidates from opposing any untoward actions of the Electoral Committee.
The participation of Mrs. Fatima Kwaku in the Electoral Committee and conduct of the elections was another low point in the elections. It would be recalled that Kwaku had been deeply involved in the bitter and uproarious dispute that arose over the failed attempt by the falsely monolithic Northern Lawyers Forum a.k.a Arewa to present J. B. Daudu S.A.N as the single presidential candidate in the election and keep J. K. Gadzama out of the race. Up to the very day of the election Kwaku was a well known J. B. Daudu supporter, yet she and other so called learned elders and sages saw no sense in the decency that dictated her self-retirement from the electoral
committee!
In the course of the election proper maybe about three hours after the commencement of voting, the pair of Funmi Roberts and Chief Niyi Akintola rushed in one after the other, may be in the interval of thirty minutes to plead with the agents to agree to the opening of the voting hall to the huge crowd of voters outside.
According to the two lawyers, incidentally both who were co-chairmen of the Local Organising Committee of the Ibadan Delegates conference, the gates to the voting
hall should be opened since the "crowd outside were setting uncontrollable and wild and would soon force their way any how."
Chief Niyi Akintola SAN, a loud and virulent Dauduist was especially earnest in this claim. But when pointedly reminded by this reporter that he lacked the locus to press for such a thing, as to regulating access of voters, he not being part of the Electoral
Committee, his response to the QUO VADIS was a lame "we are only trying to find a solution and some people are just shouting."
All this while, the Electoral Committee maintained a sedate, "all-is-well-in-Zion posture" and did nothing!
The pertinent questions begging for answers were and still are:
1. Is throwing the gates open to a frenzied crowd, on an election ground, a reasonable
option?
2. Who was responsible for lack of crowd control?
3. Why was there such a massive crowd build-up considering the fact that NBA elections normally take 10-15 hours to conclude, and there had been no precedent of
crowd disturbance or unruliness since 1998, after the rebirth of the NBA?
In the light of all the above issues and points, I submit that any well meaning Nigerian patriot will find it hard to recommend the just concluded elections and the
accompanying shenanigans to this lamentable country.
An election where tribalism was a major factor, where key conductors were partisan, where there was no (display of) voters register, where crowd-control was poor, where voters accreditation was not transparent and where election conductors threatened,
terrorised and intimidated agents from asking relevant questions.
I close with this observation. In the Ibadan Delegate Conference election only about 1,204 voters voted in one voting centre. Imagine if it was an election of 30 million voters in 500,000 centres. Just imagine.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
'Go, Man, Go' By Adesina Ogunlana
Eni egungun
Lese lo n se
Laka n laka
Ta la be lo (Yoruba Proverb)
(The needy perforce goes to
the provider)
For the past three weeks now I have been on the campaign train of my candidate for the office of the 2nd Vice-president of the NBA, Oludare Akande of the Ikeja branch.
Most of this time was spent traversing the whole of the North. We were, so to say, everywhere. We had meetings with the Lokoja, Lafia, Bauchi, Birnin Kebbi, Kafanchan, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jos, Jalingo, Makurdi, Minna, Maiduguri, Gboko, Gusau, Gombe, Sokoto, Suleija, Wukari, Yola, Okene, Pankshin, Damaturu, Idah branches of our great association, the N.B.A.
Our peregrinations could not have covered less than ten thousand kilometers, for truly the North is a vast space.
When we got to Kaduna, we met an elder and a former president of the association Prince Lanke Odogiyon. The Egbon welcomed as cheerfully
to his sizeable office and interacted meaningfully with us. But he expressed a view, which went unchallenged due only out of respect for the author.
According to the Prince-President, it was regrettable and dismaying that contestants for offices into the Executive Committee of the N.B.A had to cover huge distances on campaign trails.
Said Odogiyon '"when a lady, a contestant from one of the Eastern states phoned me that she would be coming to Kaduna to campaign to us, I was shocked. Come to Kaduna for what? I told her not to come.
It is too dangerous, too stressful and too expensive to be travelling up and down the country because of votes. In my time as president we banned this moving up and down but I don't know why Akeredolu is allowing it. May be we are not serious about this thing, because there has been no case of fatal accidents attending our campaigns."
With due respect to the Prince of the Niger, I see no merit at all in his position. When did going on the hustings by candidates seeking elective posts become a crime?
I have always thought that Law and Politics are soul-mates and that lawyers are best suited to understand political philosophy and practice than any other class of people.
One of the key ingredients of Democracy as a political system is election based on the equality of voting franchise of "one man, one vote." Even an ass knows this.
Two, the votes, specifically the majority of votes determine who gets the office.
Three, the votes we talk about never take up residence with the candidate, but with the electorate.
As the matters stand it is clear that the candidate in the democratic set-up must need go the 'house of votes' and interact with the occupants (electorate) in the hope that they will yield the votes with them to him.
The blunt truth is that the candidate who wants to win election in a democracy and sees no good reason to meet the electorate is any one of these four things - unserious, mad, anti-democrat or an election rigger.
Now, friends, citizens, fellow countrymen, where is the electorate of the NBA? They are, I trust you know, in the 88 branches of the NBA, scattered all over the surface of the Nigerian Earth.
It is from these 88 branches that you have the delegates who will vote on election day. It is very simple then. Candidates have no choice than to go to these branches to gain their support.
As to the first charge that campaigning nationwide is too expensive, I say being expensive is normal in democracy. Indigent contestants, who have lean financial muscles, have no business in the fray.
The incidences of winning the electorate to the candidate's side to wit, printing manifestoes, printing and posting hand-bills and posters, provisions of transportation, accommodation, security, feeding and sundry incidentals for the campaign train necessarily costs money. So a candidate who does not have funds and cannot raise funds should limit his political ambition within the boundaries of his sitting room.
The second charge that it is too dangerous for candidates to embark on nation-wide tours and campaigns also cannot stick.
So far in the annals of the history of the N.B.A no candidate or his campaign team mates has ever died or been involved in ghastly accidents. And even if this happens, it is nothing strange or unusual, vehicular accidents are one of the sad realities of life. And to those shouting "what of armed robbers and kidnappers?" my answer is "The Lord is my Shepherd" The threats of such are not enough to defer serious candidates from campaigning. By the way must a person be on a campaign tour before he suffers kidnap or robbery or any other evil?
The charge of stress is to me laughable. A democracy that is not stressful, you can be sure is not a living democracy.
Democracy has been famously defined as "Government of the people by the people and for the people.
If you have a weak or weakened bio system, why participate in politics? You must have strength for endless meetings, consultations, visits ' and receptions. Oh yes, democracy is stressful, but you only feel the stress too badly when you do not have the passion and the strength for the game.
When you are a committed democrat you won't call getting out to meet the
electorate you will eventually serve, if elected, stressful. If merely reaching out to the electorate my dear lazy bone candidate is stressful, what will you call serving them?
For me and my team, our campaign to the North to the West, Mid-West and the East was more fun than pain.
Everyday of the campaign was an education, in geography, history, culture, agro-economy, tourism etc.
There were so many beautiful and memorable encounters in our interactions with colleagues in the various branches.
In Akwanga we paid a courtesy visit to the Judge of the High Court. He turned out to be one of principled judges who gave the historic judgement in the case of Mimiko vs Agagu, ensuring peace and progress instead of chaos and frustration in Ondo state.
In Damaturu, I saw the largest collection of tractors ever, may be numbering more than 400. Yet they were just the remainder of the lot given out to farmers in the state.
In Gusau, I had certainly the best fura de nono of my life. This wonderful
quality was only rivalled by the dambu nono and fura de nono of Gombe town. It was in Gombe that I was introduced to dambu nono.
The Gombe nono is so good that the next NEC meeting should hold there and the next in Gusau. In Birinin Kebbi, we learnt that not all that glitters is
gold. The impressive looking hotel we stayed the night, rejoiced in the name "ZINARI" which means gold in Hausa language.
My resolve that I would name my first daughter ever, Zinari, dissolved in the middle of the night when PHCN struck as usual and wicked mosquitoes took over, feasting greedily on us. All through the ordeal the only person who appeared at peace under the bombardment happened to be the only northerner amongst us, inspiring some of us to think that there was perhaps, tribalism even among mosquitoes!
Between Jalingo and Maiduguri, we saw something that almost disproved the biblical parable of the seed sown in a rocky place. Unlike the Biblical seed which germinated poorly, the ones we saw in Biu and its environs sprang lustily up to the sky even though their roots lay below and amidst crags. We are talking of places where the furrows of the ridges are rows
and rows of stones.
And what stones! So heavy were they given their relative sizes that we suspected they contained iron ore. Impressed, I took two samples home, only for my wife to exclaim upon my arrival "after all these days in the North, it is only stone you bring comot!”
On the way to Gombe, I saw for first time a shepherdess driving a herd of cows numbering about thirty.
Another proof that what a man can do a woman can copy! It was also on this journey that I saw for the first time a herd or is it a pack of donkeys about forty strong. Before then I had thought that donkeys were unsociable loners.
From Awka to Onitsha to Agbor to Ugehlli, our reception involved the presentation, 'wedjing' and breaking of kolanuts. Not to talk of wine gifts. Oh, what wonderful hosts our colleagues were.
Face to face, goes the ancient adage, is better than a thousand letters. I agree. By visiting our colleagues in their various bases, we learnt first hand of their challenges, aspirations and requests. Only a few of our hosts appreciated SMS politicians.
Boy, I can't wait for the 2012 political season come. To democrats willing to pay the price, campaigning all over the country is another name for in-
land vacation!
Lese lo n se
Laka n laka
Ta la be lo (Yoruba Proverb)
(The needy perforce goes to
the provider)
For the past three weeks now I have been on the campaign train of my candidate for the office of the 2nd Vice-president of the NBA, Oludare Akande of the Ikeja branch.
Most of this time was spent traversing the whole of the North. We were, so to say, everywhere. We had meetings with the Lokoja, Lafia, Bauchi, Birnin Kebbi, Kafanchan, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Jos, Jalingo, Makurdi, Minna, Maiduguri, Gboko, Gusau, Gombe, Sokoto, Suleija, Wukari, Yola, Okene, Pankshin, Damaturu, Idah branches of our great association, the N.B.A.
Our peregrinations could not have covered less than ten thousand kilometers, for truly the North is a vast space.
When we got to Kaduna, we met an elder and a former president of the association Prince Lanke Odogiyon. The Egbon welcomed as cheerfully
to his sizeable office and interacted meaningfully with us. But he expressed a view, which went unchallenged due only out of respect for the author.
According to the Prince-President, it was regrettable and dismaying that contestants for offices into the Executive Committee of the N.B.A had to cover huge distances on campaign trails.
Said Odogiyon '"when a lady, a contestant from one of the Eastern states phoned me that she would be coming to Kaduna to campaign to us, I was shocked. Come to Kaduna for what? I told her not to come.
It is too dangerous, too stressful and too expensive to be travelling up and down the country because of votes. In my time as president we banned this moving up and down but I don't know why Akeredolu is allowing it. May be we are not serious about this thing, because there has been no case of fatal accidents attending our campaigns."
With due respect to the Prince of the Niger, I see no merit at all in his position. When did going on the hustings by candidates seeking elective posts become a crime?
I have always thought that Law and Politics are soul-mates and that lawyers are best suited to understand political philosophy and practice than any other class of people.
One of the key ingredients of Democracy as a political system is election based on the equality of voting franchise of "one man, one vote." Even an ass knows this.
Two, the votes, specifically the majority of votes determine who gets the office.
Three, the votes we talk about never take up residence with the candidate, but with the electorate.
As the matters stand it is clear that the candidate in the democratic set-up must need go the 'house of votes' and interact with the occupants (electorate) in the hope that they will yield the votes with them to him.
The blunt truth is that the candidate who wants to win election in a democracy and sees no good reason to meet the electorate is any one of these four things - unserious, mad, anti-democrat or an election rigger.
Now, friends, citizens, fellow countrymen, where is the electorate of the NBA? They are, I trust you know, in the 88 branches of the NBA, scattered all over the surface of the Nigerian Earth.
It is from these 88 branches that you have the delegates who will vote on election day. It is very simple then. Candidates have no choice than to go to these branches to gain their support.
As to the first charge that campaigning nationwide is too expensive, I say being expensive is normal in democracy. Indigent contestants, who have lean financial muscles, have no business in the fray.
The incidences of winning the electorate to the candidate's side to wit, printing manifestoes, printing and posting hand-bills and posters, provisions of transportation, accommodation, security, feeding and sundry incidentals for the campaign train necessarily costs money. So a candidate who does not have funds and cannot raise funds should limit his political ambition within the boundaries of his sitting room.
The second charge that it is too dangerous for candidates to embark on nation-wide tours and campaigns also cannot stick.
So far in the annals of the history of the N.B.A no candidate or his campaign team mates has ever died or been involved in ghastly accidents. And even if this happens, it is nothing strange or unusual, vehicular accidents are one of the sad realities of life. And to those shouting "what of armed robbers and kidnappers?" my answer is "The Lord is my Shepherd" The threats of such are not enough to defer serious candidates from campaigning. By the way must a person be on a campaign tour before he suffers kidnap or robbery or any other evil?
The charge of stress is to me laughable. A democracy that is not stressful, you can be sure is not a living democracy.
Democracy has been famously defined as "Government of the people by the people and for the people.
If you have a weak or weakened bio system, why participate in politics? You must have strength for endless meetings, consultations, visits ' and receptions. Oh yes, democracy is stressful, but you only feel the stress too badly when you do not have the passion and the strength for the game.
When you are a committed democrat you won't call getting out to meet the
electorate you will eventually serve, if elected, stressful. If merely reaching out to the electorate my dear lazy bone candidate is stressful, what will you call serving them?
For me and my team, our campaign to the North to the West, Mid-West and the East was more fun than pain.
Everyday of the campaign was an education, in geography, history, culture, agro-economy, tourism etc.
There were so many beautiful and memorable encounters in our interactions with colleagues in the various branches.
In Akwanga we paid a courtesy visit to the Judge of the High Court. He turned out to be one of principled judges who gave the historic judgement in the case of Mimiko vs Agagu, ensuring peace and progress instead of chaos and frustration in Ondo state.
In Damaturu, I saw the largest collection of tractors ever, may be numbering more than 400. Yet they were just the remainder of the lot given out to farmers in the state.
In Gusau, I had certainly the best fura de nono of my life. This wonderful
quality was only rivalled by the dambu nono and fura de nono of Gombe town. It was in Gombe that I was introduced to dambu nono.
The Gombe nono is so good that the next NEC meeting should hold there and the next in Gusau. In Birinin Kebbi, we learnt that not all that glitters is
gold. The impressive looking hotel we stayed the night, rejoiced in the name "ZINARI" which means gold in Hausa language.
My resolve that I would name my first daughter ever, Zinari, dissolved in the middle of the night when PHCN struck as usual and wicked mosquitoes took over, feasting greedily on us. All through the ordeal the only person who appeared at peace under the bombardment happened to be the only northerner amongst us, inspiring some of us to think that there was perhaps, tribalism even among mosquitoes!
Between Jalingo and Maiduguri, we saw something that almost disproved the biblical parable of the seed sown in a rocky place. Unlike the Biblical seed which germinated poorly, the ones we saw in Biu and its environs sprang lustily up to the sky even though their roots lay below and amidst crags. We are talking of places where the furrows of the ridges are rows
and rows of stones.
And what stones! So heavy were they given their relative sizes that we suspected they contained iron ore. Impressed, I took two samples home, only for my wife to exclaim upon my arrival "after all these days in the North, it is only stone you bring comot!”
On the way to Gombe, I saw for first time a shepherdess driving a herd of cows numbering about thirty.
Another proof that what a man can do a woman can copy! It was also on this journey that I saw for the first time a herd or is it a pack of donkeys about forty strong. Before then I had thought that donkeys were unsociable loners.
From Awka to Onitsha to Agbor to Ugehlli, our reception involved the presentation, 'wedjing' and breaking of kolanuts. Not to talk of wine gifts. Oh, what wonderful hosts our colleagues were.
Face to face, goes the ancient adage, is better than a thousand letters. I agree. By visiting our colleagues in their various bases, we learnt first hand of their challenges, aspirations and requests. Only a few of our hosts appreciated SMS politicians.
Boy, I can't wait for the 2012 political season come. To democrats willing to pay the price, campaigning all over the country is another name for in-
land vacation!
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